Redskins owner tried to pay Park Service $25,000 to remove trees

POTOMAC, Md. -- Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder
offered to pay the National Park Service $25,000 four years ago in
return for permission to cut down trees near his house that
obscured his view of the Potomac River.

The offer was turned down because the area was environmentally
protected, The Washington Post reported, citing documents from the
Interior Department. But the superintendent of the C&O Canal
National Historical Park, Douglas Faris, said in a letter that
Snyder could make a "general donation" to the park not connected
to his property.

The records are part of an ongoing review of the Park Service
decision last fall to allow Snyder to cut down 130 trees from an
easement he owns between the C&O Canal and his $10 million estate.

The move is under review by the Interior Department's inspector
general to determine if the Park Service was pressured into making
a deal. Montgomery County is also investigating whether Snyder
violated local conservation laws by removing the trees without
permission of the planning board.

Snyder's representatives claim he received no special treatment,
and that the Park Service got more than $100,000 in concessions
from Snyder. The Redskins owner also cleaned up what was a tangled
mass of non-native trees, replacing them with 600 native saplings,
according to Snyder's spokesman Mike Sitrick.

The National Park Foundation has not received a donation from
Snyder or the Redskins in the past three years, according to a
spokeswoman. It is not clear if he donated to an individual park.